Valid point. Here's mine, non spoiler:
Alright, so I just got back, my thoughts as followed.
I'm not even sure where to begin with this because it's still stuck in my mind over an hour later. And that's something that's never happened to me with a Marvel movie. This movie never lets up from the first minute, and yet there's a surprising amount of depth to it, a lot more than an other Avengers films, and honestly more than most of the MCU solo films.
First off, the pacing of this movie is on point. To be able to craft a story like this with so many characters and have it run as buttery smooth as it is is nothing short of a miracle. This film will be looked at in film classes in the future in how you manage a story with this many characters in it.
It would be impossible to write about every character, so all I can really do is say no-one feels like they've been done an injustice to. Everyone has their moment and no-one feels like they are trying to outshine the other actors, this is as big a team effort as you're ever likely to see from everyone involved. Most ensembles films have a few of the characters be the lead but everyone is balanced perfectly. Thanos is not so much the lead as he is the glue that holds it all together. Most surprisingly, he makes his case to the audience as to why he's doing what he's doing, not as a quest for power, but as a quest for balance. He's the type of villain that has been sorely missed from the MCU.
There are a few short cuts made here and there with some characters seemingly coming out of nowhere to move the story forward, a few WTF moments from some characters and a few surprisingly dodgy looking CG effect but overall nothing noticeable to derail the ride. The action is pretty intense and given how the groups are split some of the sequences are very inventive, although some of the sequences are a bit too shaky cam for my liking.
As it stands this the first and only Marvel movie where I genuinely had no idea where they were taking the story. The best compliment I can say is that this doesn't feel like a Marvel movie, at least not a regular one. Part of that may be seeing all these characters we've been watching for 10 years converge together, part of that is down to the villain being a genuine threat, part of that is the technical precision needed to make this work, all of those pieces make this something really unique. Does that make it their best film? I don't know yet. All I can say is that this is the first time I walked out wanting to immediately watch a Marvel movie again.
A very, very strong 8/10
